This was not what she'd signed up for

[night-mare-chan.livejournal.com]

Title: Horrors
Rating: PG-13
Media: Fic
Characters: Bellemere, Nojiko, Nami (sort of)
Word Count: 241



Stone dust filled the air, fire snapped nearby, casting the dimness in a heated glow and carrying with it the acerbic smell of charring wood, furniture, clothes, people. Hands twisted up from the rubble here and there and one of them, she noticed with a heavy lidded stare, was too small, blackened and seared by fire.
The horrors of war.

Ha.

There was a dull roaring in her ears, and despite the fires dancing around her, she was cold. Blood loss. They’d taught her that. Taught her what to do no less. She couldn’t find the effort to care. She’d wanted to join the navy. See the world. Not destroy it. But that was part of it, too, she guessed.

Horrors of war.

Just a phrase in a book. By someone who had been there. Maybe seen the broken body of a comrade, red blossoming on his back as he sheltered, or maybe tackled at reaching woman. Reaching for what? It didn’t matter. They were both gone in the stone and the dust.

She would be with them soon...another statue in this graveyard.

There was a faint sound like a baby’s laugh, a shifting of rubble, and she opened her eyes. There was a little girl with blue hair, like a little distant star, carrying something. Not a statue or a corpse but life. A tiny dwindling spark getting ever further away.

Bellemere pushed herself to her feet, and followed.